Some facts you just have to face
by SpitzeFeder
Summary: I squeezed in a one-shot on The Resident – whump and care. Hope you'll like it. How would his friends react if for one time only Conrad would actually ask for help? As always: English is not my first language, so please be kind. I do not own The Resident. Reviews are always welcome!


Conrad was basically running everywhere. Sometimes he felt a little bit like Forrest Gump, he thought sarcastically.

His ribs where throbbing, his head spinning, and his mouth felt like cotton wool had been stuffed into it. But he had to get up. He had to keep running, he had to help... because that was what makes a man worthy. Death before dishonour.

* * *

The car-crash had been right on his bike-route to Chastain.

Conrad had heard the crash and had seen smoke rising from a distance, before he could actually lay eyes on the two wedged wrecks at the intersection. Only a few hundred yards separated him from the scene and he hit the pedals of his bike stronger. But then out of nowhere a driver unintentionally opened the door of his family van. Maybe he had the same idea of running to help. But on the other hand maybe he just wanted to gawk.

Conrad didn´t know, but what he knew was that it was too late to dodge the impact.

A sharp braking and an subconscious swerve with the handlebar brought him at least as far out of reach of the door to throw him "only" off his bike. It could have also be the hood of the SUV, who was choosing this very moment to recklessly and with howling horn overtake them. Conrad felt the impact on the handlebars, saw the asphalt speeding closer. The street was scraping up the skin on his left forearm and finally his bike clattered over him and landed lying half on top of its rider, the front wheel still turning. He gasped, his ribs felt as if he had just been impaled like a kebab roll.

His right hand felt instinctively for his sternum, but surprisingly his hand came back with no bloodstains. Apparently not impaled, Conrad tried to sit up.

A strong hand on his upper arm. Where had this slightly overweight family dad come from?

"Oh man, are you hurt?"  
The man in his midforthies was coming in an awkward squat, his eyes wide with concern, and Conrad, through a faint mist in his head, recognized him at his thinning hairline and beige jacket as the guy who had just teared open the car door in front of him.

"I'm so sorry," the driver apologized a little breathless.  
Reflexively Conrad shook him off and tried to orient himself.  
"You´re all right, man? I just wanna help you."

Conrad stared up. Then he remembered why he had been in such a hurry, and his eyes flashed to the smoldering bonnets of the two cars that had crashed into each other in the middle of the intersection only a few yards away.

"Better help out there."  
With the helping hand on his upper arm, Conrad scrambled to his feet, briefly fighting for his breath. It could only have been a few seconds since the accident, because still several viewers stood indecisively next to their stopped vehicles. The image seemed frozen like on TV.

Conrad shook his head and narrowed his eyes. Then he looked up at his first responder.  
"Go on, I'm fine. The people in the car need more help than me."  
He waved in the direction of the smoking wrecks.  
"I'll be right there, I'm a doctor."  
He reached under his chin, loosened the clasp of his helmet and dropped it carelessly next to his bike. A look to the ground showed him a twisted handlebar and a bent front wheel. Thats gonna be an expensive repair.

Conrad took a deep breath and got to work.

* * *

Fortunately, the occupants of the vehicles had not been injured too badly. An elderly lady driver had been trapped, but the fire department, who had been called in quickly, was able to free her from the car with brute force, and it turned out that she had got away with a broken tibia. Her little granddaughter in the back seat had a slight shock, the driver of the other vehicle a laceration.

Conrad gradually took care of the injured and gave instructions to the paramedics and bystanders. Finally, he drove with the elderly lady and her granddaughter in the back of an ambulance to the emergency room of Chastain Memorial.

"Conrad?"  
Emergency medicine specialist Irving Feldman was very surprised when he saw his colleague climbing out of the ambulance, a little tired, sweaty and dirty.  
"How come you are here?"

"I ran into the accident on my way to work."  
Conrad said curtly as they entered the emergency room on either side of the stretcher.  
"That's Rebekka Quinten, 62, probable tibia fracture. The fire department had to free her from the wreck, so probably a light shock, too."

He turned to the female paramedic, who carried the frightened little girl wrapped in a blanket to the emergency room. Conrad smiled and stroked the child soothingly over the head.  
"And that's Eireen, 2 years old, apparently uninjured. She was with her grandma in the car, so we should check her through as a precaution."

He took the girl from the paramedic, slightly grimacing, and with a light swing set her to her granny on the stretcher. The little girl snuggled up to her granny's chest and the elderly lady smiled gratefully.

"The other driver is coming in with a head laceration, but he looked stable."  
Conrad suddenly noticed his breath catching and leaned briefly on the edge of the stretcher in front of him. But as fast as the shortness of breath had come, it passed away again. Irving, who had just bent over Mrs. Quinten checking her pupils with a penlight, had noticed nothing. Conrad tried to deepen his breath.

"Can you manage?"  
Irving looked up. "Of course." He answered as he returned to his patient.

"Mrs. Quinten, I pass on the phonenumber of your daughter, a nurse will contact her immediately. "  
Conrad briefly squeezed the hand of the elderly lady.  
"Thank you very much Dr. Hawkins, thank you so very much."  
Her eyes welled up with tears. Conrad ruffled the hair of the girl who was now relax suckling on her thumb, then turned to the emergency reception desk and handed Ellen a handwritten slip of paper.

The few steps to the desk left him a little breathless and involuntarily he leaned against the counter. He stroked his face to scare away the emerging mist and forced a smile.

"Ellen, that's the phone number of Mrs. Quintens daughter, the lady with the car accident in Bay 4. Would you let her know that her mother and daughter are with us, and try not to upset her? Apparently she is pregnant again."

Ellen smiled. "How's Mrs. Quinten?"  
"Feldman checks on her, but it looks like she's got a light shock and shin fracture. Nothing life threatening. The little one is unharmed."

"Thats good. I'm always happy to deliver such news. I'll take care of it right away."

"Thanks." Conrad turned to go, unobtrusively fingering his left side. He almost ran into Irving, who had just come out of Mrs. Quintins compartment and pulled the curtain shut behind him.

"The lady was really lucky." He smiled. "We send her straight up to the X-ray and a pediatrician then looks after the little one."  
"Good." Conrad felt a slight dizzyness.  
He swallowed and stopped briefly beside an empty treatment room. Involuntarily his hand sought hold on the glass door. He felt his hands start to shake.  
"Conrad?" Irving's voice sounded worried.  
Conrad looked up and squinted his eyes. He bit his lower lip for a moment, then lowered his voice.

"Irv," he paused, then took a deep breath. "Can I ask you for a favor? Do you have a minute?"  
Irving's eyebrows contracted. "Yeah, sure, what's up?"

Without further thinking, Conrad pulled the befriended doctor into the empty treatment room, closed the door and sank down against the edge of the bed. He closed his eyes for a moment.

"I think I need your help."

Without another word, he pulled up the left side of his black T-shirt, exposing an impressive bruise spilling over his left ribs, sternum and down to his abdomen. Irving's eyes widened and he took two steps toward his colleague.  
"Conrad, what the hell ..." Then realization dawned on him and he looked him in the face. "You _ran into_ the accident?"

Carefully he started palpating the maltreated ribs. Conrad drew in a sharp breath. Between the jerking breaths, he said:  
"Well, to be more precise, I drove into the car door of a onlooker. Hit chest-first into my handlebar."  
Irving shook his head and lowered his hands.

He pointed at the shirt and at the same time pulled his stethoscope from the collar.  
"Can you take that off?"  
Conrad did as he was told, pulling the shirt over his head with some effort. The action left him somewhat breathless. Irving's lips tightened as he placed the stethoscope head on the injured Residents back.

"Can you breathe in deeply?" Conrad obied, and Irving listened intently. Then he changed to the chestwall and listened to the heart sounds. Taking the scope out of his ears, he pointed to the bed.  
"Lungs are free and the cardiac function seems ok too, maybe slighty irregular. Please lie down."

With some effort, Conrad forced himself to roll on his back and let Dr. Feldman palpate his ribs again. He drew in a sharp breath as searching fingers touched a particularly sensitive spot along the sternum.

"I'm sorry about that. But we definitely need an x-ray here."  
Irving's hands wandered down.  
"Do you feel any pain somewhere else, too? In the abdomen?"  
He groped further and Conrad let his head sink into the pillow.  
"No, the door caught me mostly up there."

"Did you wear a helmet?" Hands on his skull, a penlight in his eyes.  
"Yes." "Feldman let out a relieved breath. "Good, thats at least something."

He turned to the phone.  
"I sign you up for the x-ray, thorax in 2 planes. And to be on the safe side, we also check the skull and cervical spine."  
Conrad nodded obediently. "Whatever you say."

He swung his legs out of bed and started to get up, but Irving, who had just finished his call, stopped him.  
"Wowowow, Iron Man! Where do you think you´re going?"  
"Well, to X-ray. "

"You do not really think that I let you wander to the 4th floor alone?"  
He gently pushed Conrad back onto the bed.  
"I would have taken the elevator," Conrad replied a bit sheepishly.  
"It's out of the question, a nurse will accompany you."  
"Oh, come on, Irving, do not make such a fuss!"

"If in this case I were the patient and you the doctor, you would make a much bigger fuss!" replied the humorous doctor and Conrad had to admit that he was right.  
He either wouldn´t let a patient with a thorax injury walk through the hospital on his own.  
"Okay, but please, low-key. And without a wheelchair!" he insisted, as Henry, a tall male nurse, called in by Irving, came through the door with such a vehicle. The nurse hesitated.

"Dr. H.! What happened to you?"  
"Bike accident, Henry." Irving answered in his stead. Dr. Hawkins wishes for a "low-key"-companion" to X-ray."  
He grinned mischievously and handed the referral to Henry.  
"Make sure that they hurry up up there." He whispered in the ear of the big nurse.

Both knew Dr. Hawkins for several years and both knew how hard it was for Conrad to ask for help. It was only fair to expose him to as few embarrassing inquiries as possible.

"When he's done, please bring him down here again. I want to run a few more tests," Irving shouted after them as they trudged side by side in the direction of the elevator.  
For safety's sake, but a little too close for Conrad's taste, Henry walked closeby to catch him in case he stumbled.

* * *

Conrad walked slightly hunched over and scowling, beside the tall nurse who nearly topped him by a head. He was grateful that Irving and Henry were relatively unremarkable with his injury, but it annoyed him that it had come this far.

So he was glad when he finally dropped into a chair in the waiting area of the X-ray department and watched as Henry routinely registered him with the on-duty nurse and handed over the papers. Nurse Karen looked at the name, looked up, startled, then gave him an encouraging nod. Conrad briefly raised his hand in greeting, then kept staring into empty space. He was almost startled when Henry suddenly dropped into the chair next to him.

"You do not have to wait here with me, Henry, I do not need a babysitter."  
"Dr. F. said I should bring you back down to the ER after the exam," replied the tall nurse.  
"I´ll find the way alone, Henry, seriously. This will probably take a while."

Henry seemed undecided.  
"Then I'll pick you up here in 20 minutes." He got up. "Please do not be unreasonable and just stay here until I'm back."  
"I'm not unreasonable, Henry." The friendly nurse winked. "Yeah, sure. See you then."

Conrad sank back into his sombre thoughts until a friendly call from the on-duty nurse tore him out of his thoughts.  
"Conrad Hawkins."

Just as he was about to push himself out of the chair, a much deeper voice drew his attention.  
"Conrad?"  
AJ Austin was jauntily coming around a corner, just in time to lay eyes on Conrad as he scrambled out of his chair in the waiting area. The resolute doctor came energetically toward him.

"Is everything alright?" He looked around the otherwise empty waiting room of the X-ray department and his gaze remained briefly on Karen, who held Conrad's file in her hand. His gaze wandered over Conrad's slightly hunched form, spotted the heavy breath, and instinctively reached for Conrad's upper arm. His eyebrows contracted.  
"Are you alright?" he asked again. Conrad swallowed.

"I had," gasped Conrad, "a little bike accident".  
His hand moved to his left side, where the sharp pain of getting up too quickly reached new heights. AJ took him the few steps to the passage to the X-ray department and let the nurse pass him the file. His face twisted worriedly as he scanned the entries.

"Well then, good luck," he said as Conrad walked through the door into the treatment area. Then he followed Conrad unobtrusively to the examination room.

* * *

X-rays were not painful, but the feeling of being exposed on the cold exam table was something Conrad found hard to bear. Lying flat on his back his side pounded in the rhythm of his heartbeat and he felt like he was not getting enough air into his lungs. After the X-ray specialist's instructions to hold his breath for several seconds while the picture was taken, he panted as if after a sprint. He found it hard to sit up again and was not really surprised when AJ stepped out of the surveillance booth and helped him into a wheelchair without another word. Henry was back, too, and this time Conrad did not resist when they took him back to the emergency room in a wheelchair.

Once there, however, Doctor Feldman stood wide-eyed to the escort with whom Conrad returned to his station.  
"Dr. Austin?" He greeted the tall thoracic surgeon, "to what do we owe the honor?"  
"I just wanted to make sure that our friend here does not pierce a lung with a broken rib on his way from x-ray," the doctor replied dryly and followed Feldman, Henry and Conrad into the examination room. Conrad rolled his eyes at these words and looked up at the three men.

"Guys, I feel highly coveted, but it's really not necessary for everyone to bow and scrape around me," he grumbled as he pushed himself out of the chair and onto the bed with Henry's help.

"What is necessary and what is not you would rather leave to us under these circumstances," Dr. Austin said sternly and handed Feldman the monitor with the examination results.

The ER-Doctor studied it carefully before handing it to Conrad, pointing out the results.  
"Rib four and five parasternal left are fractured, six and seven cracked and severly bruised. You'll have fun with this for a while."  
"And," Dr. Austin added, „the fractures are right over your heart." His face became serious.  
"Conrad, that's not to be trifled with."

Conrad, still breathing intermittently, rolled his eyes. Austin spoke again.  
"I'd say we'll at least admit you over night for observation. Make sure you do not develop a pneumothorax and run a few more tests. ECG, Echocardiogram and lung function."

Conrad's eyes widened as he started to sit up.  
"Oh, guys, don´t overdo it!"  
But he did not get any further, because a coughing fit made him collapse back onto the bed. Immediately he felt someone put a pillow in his arms and a big hand laid down reassuringly on his back.  
"Steady breath, Conrad."  
A stethoscope guided by Austin wandered over his back and, as the coughing fit subsided and he could lean back on the bed to catch his breath, over his heart.

Meanwhile Dr. Feldman grabbed his wrist to check the pulse.  
"No discussion, Conrad. This is not optional," Feldman stated firmly and reached for the telephone to organize a stationary bed at the casualty ward.

"Sometimes you just have to face the facts," Austin stated sympathetically.


End file.
